What it Takes to be a Black
by Neville Foreville
Summary: Three sisters. One Dark Lord. This story is about how the choices they made affected who they turned out to be.


What It Takes To Be a Black

Three sisters. One Dark Lord. This story is about how the choices they made affected who they turned out to be.

How to be a Black? In order to be a Black, you must, no ifs, ands, or buts, be a Pureblood. Do you think that we would let anyone in the Black family if they weren't? After all, we do have a reputation to keep. To be a Black, you must be willing to give up what you want in life for what you family wants. Its really not all that hard.

Well, apparently it was for my dear little sister Ande. She gave up everything the Black family has worked for for some Mudblood boy. She gave it all up. Cissy, married who was wanted for her, but she really didn't have the guts. I am the only one that was loyal to the Most Ancient and Noble House of Black.

When we were little, Ande and Cissy were some of my best friends, but I didn't realize what they were. More like what Ande really was. It disgusts me now that I look back on it. She was a traitor to our family. To me.

I was eleven when I went off to Hogwarts. Of course, I was sorted into Slytherin. My parents were so proud of me. I met many different people at Hogwarts. I met the good, like Rudolfus, and I met the bad, like Arthur Weasley. Rudolfus was one of my best friends, but I knew that I was going to marry him someday. It was what was expected of both of us. While I was at Hogwarts was when I realized who I was going to be. I was going to be the Slytherin Princess and I was going to be perfect at it.

I am Bellatrix Black Lestrange, or as my sisters used to call me, Bella. I prefer the former, thank you very much. I have severed all ties with my sister Ande, and my sister Cissy, isn't anything compared to me. Sure, she married who we wanted her to, but she doesn't care as much as the rest of us about things that have to concern the family. After all, she is now a Malfoy, not a Black. None of us are Blacks anymore, but once it is in you, you can't just walk away from it. You must embrace it. You must know what it takes to be a Black.

I used to care what happened to my sisters, but as time has gone on, I see them for what they really are; Ande especially. She is a traitor that doesn't care. Ande never cared, and Cissy never had the heart to become more of a Black.

When I think about what happened when Ande left our family, I think about the trouble that Ande made. After she left and broke down our family tree, I made it my personal business to prune off the unwanted branches of our family tree. Those branches would have to be Ande, her Muggle-born husband, her metamorphagous daughter, and her werewolf son-in-law.

It was my job to get rid of them. It was my job to prune off the branches that were unwanted to The Dark Lord. I gave my life to him. He is the only one that matters now. Not my family and what they mean to the wizarding community. Not even my husband, Rudolfus. Nothing matters more than The Dark Lord. I do his work now, and if what that means is that I have to give up my own mind, I will. I will give it all up for him. And I did. Even to the extreme of dying. What mattered to him, mattered to me. What he did, I did. Where he went, I went. I gave it all to him. I gave him everything so I could show what it takes to be a Black.

As a member of the Black family, I was one of them. I was one of the most Noble and Ancient House of Black. And I will give everything to make the Dark Lord's plans come true. I will give myself to be his greatest servant. I will be in power with him.

How to be a Black? Well, I wouldn't really know would I? I am not your typical Black. I am not who you would think of when you think of the Great and Noble House of Black. In fact, I am most likely the complete opposite. I once was what was expected, but now, I don't even know what it takes to be a Black.

I am Andromeda Black, or as I prefer to call myself, Andromeda Tonks. When someone runs away from the Black family, they are blasted out of the family tapestry. Needless to say, I am no longer on that tapestry. There are no memories of me in that house, other than what my dear family wants to remember.

When my family decided to be who they are, I don't know, but I do know when I decided to be who I am. What I was before was not appealing to anyone except my snobby family and who they wanted me to marry. Who I am now on the other hand, is who I want to be, and who I am going to stay.

The change in me all started when I was told by this seemingly annoying Hufflepuff that I was different from my sisters. He told me that there wasn't the evil longing in me that he saw in them. For a while, I tried to ignore him, but after a short while, I realized that was virtually impossible. He was always there, and he really didn't seem to care when I said that I didn't want him there. No matter what I said, he stayed there, always. Never leaving, and never standing down when my sisters tried to make him feel unwanted and unlovable.

His name is Theodore Tonks, or Ted as I like to call him. If you are smart, you are probably realizing that my surname is now Tonks. Yes. I married the Muggle-born Hufflepuff, Ted Tonks. He taught me that there was more to life than class. He also taught me how to love. I had always assumed that I knew how to love. I figured that my family loved each other. How wrong can I get?

My family never said that they loved each other, but I thought it was a given. I know that at some point in my life, I loved my sisters, but now, I am sure that we never loved each other.

Ted taught me that love overcame anything else in the world. When I started to trust him, I knew there was no turning back. After all, he was a Muggle-born and I was a Pureblood. My family would never go for our marriage. Besides, in their minds, I was supposed to marry Lucius Malfoy. It turns out my little sister Narcissa married him. She never loved him, but no one had taught her what love was, so she didn't know the difference.

In some ways, I think she gave up. Bella was the perfect one, and I was the rebel. Cissy didn't know where she fit into the whole aspect of our lives. Over time, Cissy may have realized that she loved her son, Draco, but she never had the love that Ted and I had for our daughter, Dora.

From the first moment that I saw her teal hair turn hot pink, I knew that she was going to be our pride and joy. I loved her more than anything, which is another reason it was so hard to let her go. To let her give up everything for the man she loves.

When I think about how she disobeyed what I wanted for her to be with the only man that she ever loved, I think of my own love life. I disobeyed what my family wanted of me to be with Ted, and Dora disobeyed what I wanted for Remus John Lupin. She is definitely my daughter.

We loved her so much, which is why it was hard for me to watch her beat herself up when Remus told her that he was too old, too dangerous, too poor... the list goes on and on. Ted was all of those things, well, other than a werewolf, but I didn't care, and neither did he. Remus on the other hand had a one-track mind.

I remember the first day that Dora told me that she was in love with Remus. She told me how much she would give to be with him, and how much she loved him. In all, I have to say that it was a little odd to think that my daughter, my only daughter, was in love with one of Sirius's close friends.

I don't remember the first day that I met Remus and James, but I remember that their other friend, Peter, wasn't there. Sirius, Remus, and James came to visit me when they were about fifth years in school. Dora was out playing with her father at that point. Sirius was so happy to see what little of his family still counted as family to him. He was about the only one in my family that I still contacted and loved. Then, I got the message from Remus that Sirius had died at the hand of his cousin and my sister, Bella.

My life has been full of ups and downs. Good memories and bad. My good memories start with when I was a little girl playing with my sisters, before they were nothing but snobs, to when I met Ted at school, and when little Dora was born. Bad memories start from when I realized what my family really was, to when the war started and my big sister Bella became one of the Dark Lord's biggest follower and when she went on to help in the killing of all of my family. She didn't out-right kill Ted, but she did kill Dora, and Remus.

All of my memories with Ted and Dora are just that. Memories. All I have now is Teddy, Remus and Dora's son. Now, I just wish that I could find what it is to be a Black, so I could understand why it is that my sister felt that she needed to kill all of my family.

How to be a Black? All I know about that is what I used to believe. All I know about that is what I used to think was true no matter the cost of what happened. All I know about that is what happened to my life when I chose to believe it.

I am Narcissa Malfoy, or as I was previously called, Cissy Black. I really don't care what anyone calls me, because I really don't know who I am anymore. I used to know that I was Narcissa or Cissy Black when I was younger. When I was with my sisters, Bella and Ande, I was Cissy. Now, I am assumed to be Narcissa Malfoy; wife of Lucius Malfoy. I am supposed to be a wealthy woman of the wizarding world, and on the outside, I think that I am, but who am I on the inside? Isn't everyone always saying that is what matters?

I am more than sure that my sister Bella would no longer think of me as a sister if she knew what I did. I walked away from the battle and from what she wanted. I walked away from what everyone expected of my family. I walked away to save my family, not myself.

Being the third daughter of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black, I was expected to be perfect after Ande turned away from everything that we had wanted, and into what she wanted. It all happened so fast that I didn't realize what happened. It all happened so fast that I didn't realize that I was then set to be married to who Ande was going to be married off to before she went to marry that boy.

Personally, I have no idea how it all happened. At first, Ande, Bella and I were all really close, but once we went to Hogwarts, it all changed. Of course we were all in Slytherin house, but in about my third year, Andy's fifth, this boy started hanging around her. He was nice enough, I guess. I was the only one that knew about him, other than those at Hogwarts. She never told my family about him, definitely not Bella, and it wasn't until she was in the end of her fifth year that she really started to be around him all the time.

How long I wished for something romantic like that to happen, I don't know. I don't know how long I wished for a prince charming to come sweep me off my feet, but I do know that it was well into my married years that I finally realized that no one else was coming. Once Draco was born, I gave up trying to figure how a prince charming could come to my sister and not me. I put my heart and soul into making sure that Draco was on a good note with my family, and I hoped he wouldn't ever have to know how horrible it is to watch those you love give their lives away to someone else.

It wasn't until Draco was born that I really realized that as much as I had hated Lucius at first, I had grown to love him. Not so much for my own sake, but for the sake of my son. I would not let Draco grow up in a home where his parents don't love each other. I will not let him grow up in a home like I did.

When Ande decided what she was going to be, I decided what I was going to be. I decided that I was going to be what my family wanted of me. I was going to be a Malfoy, and I was going to be a loyal wife to Lucius and a loyal mother to Draco.

The choices I made were my own, but in some ways, Lucius and I drug Draco in to our chaotic lives. It was the wrong choice, but it was mine, along with the choice of marrying Lucius even though I was definitely not in love with him.

Love. What a silly thing to believe in, could I really believe that love existed? I doubt that things would have been different if I didn't believe in it, but I know that Ande would have shown me that love existed. She showed me that it was real by falling in love with Ted Tonks. No one, I doubt even Ande herself knows that I knew his name. I knew the name that changed my sister's, and inevitably, my life.

I made the decision to be who I am, but now, I am not too sure who that really is anymore. I just hope that Draco will decide that he will be a better person than either Lucius or I was.


End file.
